Here the train stopped, and all the passengers (some half-dozen) alighted.
The sky was still clear enough to show the broad features of the scene before me.

I looked up to a mountain side, so steep that towards the summit it appeared precipitous, and there upon the height, dimly illumined with a last reflex of after-glow, my eyes distinguished something which might be the outline of walls and houses.

This, I knew, was the situation of Catanzaro, but one could not easily imagine by what sort of approach the city would be gained; in the thickening twilight, no trace of a road was discernible, and the flanks of the mountain, a ravine yawning on either hand, looked even more abrupt than the ascent immediately before me.
There, however, stood the _diligenza_ which was somehow to convey me to Catanzaro; I watched its loading with luggage-merchandise and mail-bags--whilst the exquisite evening melted into night.

When I had thus been occupied for a few minutes, my look once more turned to the mountain, where a surprise awaited me: the summit was now encircled with little points of radiance, as though a starry diadem had fallen upon it from the sky.

"_Pronti_!" cried our driver.